CI, or continuous integration, allows developers to integrate easier and faster parts of the development project as it grows. Its automated tools allow programmers to deal better with the difficulties of integration and focus more on writing code, rather than on the backtracking tasks.
Continuous integration automated tools test and verify the work that developers integrate into a shared repository and report errors, which makes it easier for the issues to be solved faster.
What to look for in a CI automation tool?
When choosing a CI automation tool, there are several things that need to be considered. First of all, you need easy setup and installation, so the tool can be used right away. Make sure that it is also easy to use and that it can be IDE integrated so that the developers do not need to leave the IDE of their choice. It should also allow integration with different cloud platforms for faster upload time and offer various plugins and addons to be able to add functionality.
Here are the 8 best continuous integration automation tools currently on the market.
Jenkins
A popular and open-source solution that offers plenty of plugins and is very user-friendly. Jenkins can automate all tasks in connection to building and deployment, and it is very easy to install and update. Jenkins provides
Bamboo
Bamboo is created by the developers of popular software like Jira and Trello and allows you to automate building, testing, and releasing in a single workflow. It is great for projects of any size and lets you scale easily by using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
CircleCI
More than a simple CI tool, CircleCI is a cloud-based multi-platform that comes with plenty of options for customization and supports a lot of languages. It is one of the most popular DevOps tools because of the unique dashboards that offer clear visibility on data and stats to make it easier for the developers to improve their productivity.
Buddy
Buddy offers a very clear user interface and uses pipelines for the building, testing, and deployment of software. You can choose from more than 100 ready to use actions which you can arrange in any way. It supports all of the most popular frameworks, languages, and task managers, and can be integrated with Azure, Google Cloud, AWS, and more.
GoCD
GoCD is an open-source continuous integration server with which you can easily model and visualize complex workflows in real-time. It has a very intuitive interface and lets you deploy the software into production in a safe manner.
GitLab
The CI tool that is provided by GitLab comes as a web app and has an open API with which you can manage development projects. Its interface is very user-friendly and can be integrated with all of the GitLab features. It allows programmers to improve the process by building, testing, and deploying in a single workflow and find and fix bugs early.
CodeShip
This flexible and easy to use CI tool is created to help small teams by adapting to the developers’ needs and letting them decide whether they need an instant set up or more customized workflow and environment. It can be integrated with every service, tool, or cloud and allows for debugging without the need to leave the CI environment.
Nevercode
A cloud-based and fully-automated continuous integration solution that does not require any human interaction. With easy to understand documentation and user-friendly interface, Nevercode is perfect for fast adoption and can automate the whole process.
